Jason Herbeck, a professor and department chair in the Department of World Languages, recently presented an invited lecture on “French-Caribbean (Literary) Identities” for Columbia University’s Comparing Domains of Improvisation Lecture Series.
In drawing parallels between jazz improvisation and French-Caribbean literary criticism and theory, Herbeck examined the art form of improvisation as a unique methodology particularly germane to negotiating the complexity of Caribbean identity as articulated in literary works from Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti.
The lecture series is sponsored by the Department of Music, the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience Program and the Fritz Reiner Fund at Columbia University.